Api Ammonia Test Result Anomalies

[dazbud]

Hi all,

with the API Masterkit, it seems lots of people report never being able to get under 0.25ppm.
However, this seems to be more to do with the colour chart than the actual ammonia in the water.

If you compare the colour chart of the master kit to the colour chart of the API Ammonia separate kit, you'll notice that the colour of 0.25ppm is different. Pure yellow on the masterkit and very pale lime on the Ammonia only kit. Therefore if you take you test tube to good light and read against the single kit chart, will will infact register 0ppm Ammonia.

APIs insurance that you buy another kit after the master kit runs out I guess.

 

[KISSfn]

API is mass produced junk IMO. Their entire freshwater master kit costs the same as a single quality Salifert ammonia kit. I think you know which one is more accurate.

 

[denzil1nil]

great i was advised to use this kit on this forum and never seem to be able to get a reading of anything else but 0.25ppm on the ammonia test.

What test kits do you advise im sick of buying stuff just to find out its second rate.

 

[Akasha72]

I've never had a problem with the API master kit. If there's ammonia in the tank it tells me and turns green. If there isn't the test tube stays yellow. It can't get any simplier to me

 

[dazbud]

I agree. yellow is good, green is not. However, there are shades of yellow. Check the two different API kits and you'll see what I mean

 

[soybean]

The API kit is recommended as a good starting point to beginners, not as the be all and end all of kits. I agree Salifert are more accurate, I use that myself, but to a newbie stuck in a fish in cycle they're a bit of a faff and quite expensive.

The differences in the colour charts must be marginal. It's still simple enough to work out whether ammonia is present or not - the amount is irrelevant really. And if in doubt, do a water change.

 

[Akasha72]

The API kit is recommended as a good starting point to beginners, not as the be all and end all of kits. I agree Salifert are more accurate, I use that myself, but to a newbie stuck in a fish in cycle they're a bit of a faff and quite expensive.

The differences in the colour charts must be marginal. It's still simple enough to work out whether ammonia is present or not - the amount is irrelevant really. And if in doubt, do a water change.

+1 you said it better than I did

 

[KISSfn]

great i was advised to use this kit on this forum and never seem to be able to get a reading of anything else but 0.25ppm on the ammonia test.

What test kits do you advise im sick of buying stuff just to find out its second rate.

Salifert and Seachem are much better. API is recommended because they're cheap. A cheap API kit had me ripping my hair out when I was a newbie due to it's inaccuracy. As with all things in life, you get what you pay for.

 

[Aqua Tom]

Nothing wrong with the API kit, I love it.


Tom



ps, the Nitrate one tastes the best

 

[sadguppy]

Hi all,

with the API Masterkit, it seems lots of people report never being able to get under 0.25ppm.
However, this seems to be more to do with the colour chart than the actual ammonia in the water.

If you compare the colour chart of the master kit to the colour chart of the API Ammonia separate kit, you'll notice that the colour of 0.25ppm is different. Pure yellow on the masterkit and very pale lime on the Ammonia only kit. Therefore if you take you test tube to good light and read against the single kit chart, will will infact register 0ppm Ammonia.

APIs insurance that you buy another kit after the master kit runs out I guess.

Stupid question but you are looking at the freshwater chart and not the salt? You get both with the ammonia only kit and the salt version is slightly more green-tinted at 0ppm.

 

[dazbud]

doh !

The freshwater card was stuck to the inside of the box still. I was reading the saltwater card

I guess I still have ammonia somewhere between 0-0.25ppm. Which is annoying since the tank is 4 months established now and nitrate cycle working

 

[sadguppy]

First off check the water from your tap. If it is 0, are you are using Prime? It can result in a false positive result as API kit does not distinguish between ammonia and less harmful ammonium, which can be a result of adding prime to tap water containing chloramine. Therefore it will look bad but not in fact be harmful. Or something like that!
Finally make sure you always test in daylight and put the tube on a white background.

 

[Primous]

Going against the grain here but I have to agree with kissfn. When I first started my cycle I too was told that the api liquid kit is the way to go but I found them real unreliable in the fact that it starts out as one color and then morphs into the next to show a change ie yellow to green for ammonia.

Out of curiosity and a price reduction by my lfs I bought myself a nutrafin test kit and realized after my first test using both that nutrafin picks up on traces of .0something where as api does not and the key reason for this is that nutrafins 0ppm benchmark color in all of it's tests is "the color of water." If it picks up on a reading then the water changes into the relevant colour and becomes darker to show the concentration.

In short ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate at 0.something seemed easier to detect using nutrafins liquid test kit. api needed a higher concentration in all cases.

 

[soybean]

Dazbud has just said he was using the saltwater card.

 

[Xraymark]

Good pickup sadguppy.

API are fine. Seen me through a fishless cycle. If you have the money then buy the more expensive kits. The hobby can be expensive enough so need to be selective at times on what to buy.